Victory for Clean Air: GenOn Energy to
Retire Seven Coal PlantsSierra
Club hails retirements as victory for local residents, calls on GenOn to
announce transition plan for plant employees

Pennsylvania
– GenOn Energy Inc., a major nationwide energy generator, announced this
morning that the company will retire seven of its oldest, dirtiest coal-fired
power plants. These plants are located in Pennsylvania and Ohio, two
states whose residents are most affected by pollution from coal-fired power
plants.

GenOn announced the following retirements today during a
meeting with investors: Portland, Shawville, Titus, New Castle and Elrama in
Pennsylvania and Niles and Avon Lake in Ohio. In total, these retirements will
bring 2,980 megawatts of dirty and dangerous coal pollution to an end.

Pollution from coal-fired power plants, including sulfur
dioxide, nitrous oxides and mercury, contributes to four of the five leading
causes of death in the United States: heart attacks, stroke, respiratory
illnesses and cancer. Closure of the seven plants will prevent more than 179 premature
deaths, 300 heart attacks and 2,800 asthma attacks, according to data from the
Clean Air Task Force. That same report estimated the total economic impact of
premature deaths and disease from these plants at over $1.3 billion.

“Above all, this is a win for public health and for families
who have been breathing polluted air from these outdated plants,” said Bruce
Nilles, Senior Director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign. “GenOn has
recognized that operating outdated, dirty coal plants just doesn’t make
economic sense anymore, especially in a time when constructing a wind farm is
now cheaper than building a new coal plant. What matters now is ensuring that
GenOn does the right thing and transitions these workers into the growing clean
energy sector.”

One of these
coal-fired power plants, the Portland Generating Station, is the subject of a landmark
ruling by the Environmental Protection Agency requiring the plant to reduce the
pollution it releases and stop it from carrying over from the plant's home
state into New Jersey. The plant opposed that ruling, which was the first of
its kind on a single-source emitter; the Sierra Club, in a coalition of
environmental groups including Clean Air Council and Greenpeace, filed notice
to join the lawsuit to defend EPA's ruling.

Activists in
Ohio praised the planned plant retirements at Avon Lake and Niles. "For
decades, these plants have been polluting our air and water," said Dave
Simons, a Cleveland, Ohio resident and Energy Committee Chair for the Ohio
chapter of the Sierra Club. "Now we can look forward to a cleaner,
brighter future when no one will get sick because of pollution from these
plants."

But
activists in both states also stressed the need for GenOn to ensure that its
workforce will be transitioned into other employment when the plants are
retired. “GenOn may have recognized that it just makes good economic sense for
them to close these plants, but now they have the responsibility of making sure
that their business decision doesn’t mean unemployment for their workers,” said
Rashay Layman, Organizing Representative with the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal
campaign in Ohio.

The retirements, the most recent in a
wave of similar announcements from energy providers, come at a time when the
nation’s share of clean energy is at a record high. “Today’s news is part of a national trend of clean energy
replacing coal, with states like Iowa
and South Dakota generate 20% of their electricity from wind," said Randy
Francisco, Organizing Representative with the Beyond Coal Campaign in
Pennsylvania.

Coal plants are major sources of climate disruption and
toxic air pollution like mercury, soot and carbon pollution. These seven plants
bring the tally of coal plant retirements to 106 since the Sierra Club’s Beyond
Coal campaign began work to responsibly retire coal-fired power plants and
develop clean energy in 2010.